Then Marry Him
by TheOneTrueBear
Summary: Caroline, scared and confused by her sudden pregnancy visits Klaus in NOLA for advice. One shot


**A/N this happens kinda after 7x07 TVD but i guess before Aurora reveals she dumped rebekah in the ocean (3x07 TO) so we have to be flexible with the time lines of the two shows. Just my way of making everything that happens in canon Klaroline even if the shows are marrying Caroline off to Alaric and unearthing epic ex lovers for Klaus.**

He looks back at the beauty in his bed and sighs. Aurora is just as stunning as he remembers, that at least is true, but somehow that torch he thought he'd always carry for his first love as a vampire flickers uncertainly now that she's suddenly back in his life.

Her wicked smile, her dark compelling eyes, her teasing words, are all as lovely as he's dreamt of over the centuries and yet, somehow, she doesn't shine as brightly as he'd imagined she would. That inner light that he'd once thought so blinding seems dimmer now, a pale winter's day compared to the scorching desert sun that shone from another. No. He commands himself, now is not the time to think of her.

Not that she is ever that far from his thoughts. Oh he doesn't pine, not really. His return to New Orleans has been far too eventful to allow him that indulgence. His world has tilted on its axis with the arrival of his daughter and the romantic obsessions that went before seem, not trivial, but smaller somehow in comparison with the wonder and vulnerability of his baby girl.

Still images of her float often through his mind and his own contradicting pledges play often in his head. Which promise, he wonders sometimes, will he keep and which will he break?

He slips from the room and wanders distractedly through the compound looking for scotch, finding something far more intoxicating.

She's standing in the courtyard looking nervous and uncertain and, as always, a little defiant. She is as beautiful, more beautiful, than he remembers. Despite the paleness of her skin and the lines of worry drawn across her forehead.

"Klaus" she always could command him with that one word. Make a slave of him with just his name as her whip and shackles.

"Caroline?" her names comes from his mouth breathy and he curses the wonder in his voice. "Well sweetheart." He covers his shock with the smooth crooked smile he's been using to weaken women for a thousand years. Aurora taught him that, the power of his own beauty, before her he'd believed beauty was a woman's weapon, she'd showed him otherwise. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Caroline swallows, he hears the moisture move nervously in her throat, hears her heartbeat speed up just a fraction. And now he focuses his senses on her he hears something else. That's quiet thunder roar he recognises instantly. He remembers how it had terrified him when Elijah had commanded him to listen back in the cemetery with Sophie and her witches standing by and Hayley looking as terrified as he'd felt, her hand spread over her belly.

Caroline can't seem to think what to say but she doesn't need to, he knows now why she's here. He, and only he in all the world, knows first hand how excited and terrified and uncertain she is. "Come on love," he offers making a sweeping gesture towards one of the seats in the courtyard. "Sit yourself down and you can ask me what you came to ask. Hmm?"

She smiles gratefully and sits perched uneasily on the edge of the bench. He choses to sit beside her because now she's here he can't fight the desire to be close to her. It comes in a rush then, her explanation, half wonderment half indignation and he knows she can't decide if these babies in her still flat belly are a violation or a gift.

"So," she concludes once she's told him about the Gemini coven and the heretics and Alaric and all his tragedy and how she's determined to help him and his babies but doesn't now what helping them will mean. "You're the only baby having vampire I know so I thought I'd ask you." She runs her fingers through her hair in a familiar gesture of agitation. "How the hell do I do this?"

"You want my advice?" he asks incredulously. Hasn't she heard what a mess he's made of pretty much everything since he's become a father? How his fear for his daughter has driven him into a sort of madness that has all but ripped her from his arms.

He thinks of Hayley across the street playing house with Jackson and his little girl. All the time he's spent staring jealously at the little family scenes and longing to be part of that. Oh he doesn't want Hayley, never has, but he has wanted that so very badly he feels he's choking on it.

He looks at her, beautiful, caring, compassionate, practical Caroline and he knows what she should do. Knows certainly what she should do, though she'll probably think he's insane.

"Yes" she says with enough conviction that he finds he can give her this mad advice. Because being mad doesn't mean he isn't right.

"You should marry Alaric," he says keeping his tone somewhere between neutral and sincere. "Marry him and be a family"

For a long moment she just looks at him, that deep pretty crease he remembers so vividly etched between her brows. "What?" she asks dumbstruck. "That's crazy, I'm only twenty one. Besides I don't love Alaric. I'm with Stefan."

He notices that she doesn't say "I love Stefan" knows that he's reading too much significances into her choice of words but can't help but let it lift him.

"I came all the way to NOLA for advice and that's what I get? Seriously?" She looks so adorably indignant that he can't help but chuckle. Her hard reprimanding stare cuts off his mirth and he sighs. Obviously a little more explanation is required.

"Look" he moves a little closer and lets his fingers find the back of her hand, runs a figure of eight on slow repeat over the skin. "I know you feel young but the truth is you're immortal now. You have forever to be young. You can re-invent yourself every twenty years for eternity, you can live a myriad of different lives any time you like"

He looks up into her eyes and she's looking at him unconvinced so he stands and holds out his hand. "Come with me Caroline?" he offers and she only hesitates a second before her warm little hand is in his and she's letting him lead her up the stairs to the first floor drawing room. He stands her at the window and stands behind her, boldly laying his hands on her waist, reveling in the way she allows the gesture as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

"What am I –" she begins to ask and turns her head over he shoulder to look at him. Her face is so close to his he could kiss her, he wants so very much to kiss her. Knows it would be a mistake.

"Shh," he breathes and feels a tiny shudder run through her as his breath caresses her face. It's not a surprise; her wanting him was never the problem. From the first time his skin touched hers he knew how much she wanted him, its all the other stuff he wants from her that's the problem.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees what he's brought her to see and so he nods his head to the window. "Look" he commands softly but it takes a long time for her to unlink her eyes from his and in those moments he feels as close to complete as he has in a very long time.

They watch the scene together. Watch Hayley casually pass Hope to Jackson without seeming to need to speak. Watch him place the baby in her play pen as Hayley searches busily for something for a few moments before finally coming up with a bright plastic rattle that she shakes for Hope, making his little girl laugh.

"You can live any life you like, anytime you like Caroline," he tells her softly in her ear. "Except this one. This one is truly now or never. I waited a thousand years for it and I wish…" he trails off before he's talking about himself rather than her.

"You wish it was you over there?" She asks, knowingly and then with the tiniest bite of jealousy in her tone. "With Hayley."

"With Hope," he corrects. "But yes, sometimes I wish there'd been enough between Hayley and I that it could have been me there."

Caroline looks back at the scene, her pretty face dancing with confusion and accents of understanding. "But," he continues. "Hayley and I are reluctant friends at best, mortal enemies at worst. You on the other hand already have affection for the teacher. Marry Alaric, raise the children the way you always imagined you would; cheer contests and beauty pageants and whatever all America tosh you used to see in your future. "

She leans back against him. He knows the gesture is unconscious, she's processing, her mind is busy and her body has sought his out without her permission. He takes advantage of her distraction and threads his arm more firmly around her waist. Laying his chin on her shoulder.

"You don't love him, but I imagine that what you have would be enough"

She nods pensively. "But I'm with Stefan" she says eventually though she doesn't move from his arms.

"You have a chance to be a mother Caroline, one and only one chance. Stefan will understand," he turns her away from the window so she's facing him and immediately regrets the loss of her warmth against his chest. "You are beautiful, Caroline. You are strong and passionate and-" he touches her cheek and she leans a little into his touch. There is not now and never will be any denying how their bodies speak to one another, the physical rightness of them. "Stefan will wait for you," he tells her firmly despite the bitter taste of the words in his mouth. "He will wait for a time that is right for the two of you, he'll wait however long it takes because you, Caroline, are worth waiting for. He'd be a fool not to"

She's looking at him in that way that always tamed the hybrid and freed the man in him. Like she sees him, right down inside, beneath all the disguises he wears to keep the world at bay, she sees him and she doesn't despise him as she should. She doesn't flee, she dives in, plunges into his gaze and swims in it for long silent moments their breath swirling warmly between them until she eventually speaks words that he imagines are supposed to be joking but have too much hush in them to be anything other than a caress. "Are we still talking about Stefan?"

He feels his mouth curve into a crooked smile at her directness. "I thought we were."

She's silent for a moment and then she focuses her eyes on his. "Do you believe that?" she asks softly. "That if you wait long enough there'll be a time when it's right. That eventually everything you feel for someone, even if right now its seems impossible, will be just-" she shakes her head. "Just right? You won't have to fight it anymore?"

Her words are stilted and unsure, coming out in a staccato symphony of tantalizing hope. Her eyes are locked to his moving fractionally side to side in their sockets as if searching his own for answers.

His body vibrates with the excitement her words spark in his heart and the energy buzzing about his nerve endings seems to magnetise her to him. Her body is drifting closer again, as if already anticipating that coming rightness, that inevitable, he thinks now, rightness of them.

She licks her lips and it's clear that she wants to kiss him or rather that she wants him to kiss her. It would still be a mistake. He grabbed what he could from her in the forest in mystic falls because part of him, he realises now, had given up on them. Her halting troubled questions have renewed his hope and the game he is playing now is a far longer one.

He's been alive for over a thousand years, he knows Caroline and her merry band of teenage vampires can't begin to grasp how long that is, can't fathom the patience it has taught him. Can he wait a century for Caroline? For her to live her life as a mother (grandmother, great grandmother), perhaps another century after that while she tries to make it work with Stefan? Of course he can, he adjusted his perception of time long ago.

He skims his fingers in a teasing caress over her cheekbone, hinting at an intimacy to come, withholding it. "Are we still talking about Stefan?"

"I thought we were," she completes the symmetry in a low intimate voice. Her hands slide up his arms, she's falling into his eyes and the temptation to try and catch her, to snatch this opportunity and make her his is all but overwhelming.

He doesn't. He is not as impulsive as everyone believes, not when it matters. "Marry the teacher," he repeats his advice and he can see she's really considering his words now. "Have a family, have children, and through those children and their children you will have a connection to the mortal world. A reason to care, to keep the monster caged and that light in you shining always"

She nods, a pensive frown across her pale brow. "Thank you" she murmurs softly and now she seems tired of waiting for him to claim her, she leans in, her eyes closing and lips parting in anticipation of a kiss he knows would destroy his resolve of patience.

He catches her before she manages to bring her lips to his, somehow commanding the reluctant muscles in his arms to hold her at bay. "You're welcome" he replies and smiles tightly.

"Oh" she looks mortified as she steps away. "Sorry, I…"

"Wow," she looks back at him with embarrassed humour in her eyes. "I'm totally blaming pregnancy hormones for that"

They laugh lightly, so naturally, together but they sober quickly and she takes a few steps over to sit on the chaise. When he joins her she turns to him. "Thank you," she says again with a small smile. "I think you're crazy and no way am I marrying Alaric, but thanks anyway for the advice"

He smirks. "We'll see" he says smugly just to annoy her and she swats at his arm. Making him grin cheekily, their eyes dance together in one of those pure sunshine moments he's only really experienced with her. The sort that fade into something lingering and intense, something that holds them both hovering in a promise of a future that right now its hard to imagine but both have come today to believe inevitable.

"Well hello" Aurora's melodious voice startles them and Caroline jerks back guiltily.

"You must be Cami," Aurora continues in a light friendly tone as she steps into the room. She's wearing nothing but one of his black Henleys, which clings to her pert breasts and hangs down to her mid thigh.

She is a tiny perfect creature, and a picture of ease and entitlement as she glides to the drinks table. From the corner of his eye he can see Caroline watching her with a tense assessing expression and he feels ridiculously like a husband caught cheating.

"Er, no" Caroline answers and looks pointedly at him for some kind of explanation despite that he doesn't really owe her one.

"Oh, my apologies," Aurora's eyes glint with something sharp and cunning. "It's a little hard to keep track. Are you collecting blondes now my love?" she asks him playfully, if she is jealous she hides it perfectly as she turns conspiratorially to Caroline. "Must be the Viking in him"

He can feel Caroline bristling with indignation and jealousy and knows it's only a matter of time before the two of them are engaged in a full-blown mean girl smack down.

"Not a great time sweetheart," he stands and, addressing the brunette, puts himself between the two women. He really wants her out of here right now, doesn't want her knowing anything about Caroline and certainly not about her babies, Aurora is a jealous vindictive creature at the best of times and a certifiable psychotic at the worst.

"Oh Nik," she pouts. "Don't be such a bore, all these charming little friends you've got now, I want to meet them"

She turns to Caroline and as she does she runs her hand over his shoulder with a casual possessiveness that only seasoned players would realize was calculated. Caroline's eyes narrow for the briefest second and then her smile is broad and saccharine as she address Aurora. "I would love to stay, but I really have to get going. It was lovely to meet you…"

Aurora smiles with a veiled triumphalism at driving Caroline away and he wishes he could intervene but feels strangely excluded form their mean girl power play.

"I'm Aurora," Aurora's hand glides back up his arm and she lays her head over her hand on his upper arm. "Nik's first love"

Caroline makes the sort of face people reserve for toddlers and particularly comical puppies. "Awww" she gushes. "That is so sweet. I'm Caroline," her tone changes to something victorious and she doesn't look at him as she delivers her knock out blow. "His last"

Aurora releases him sharply and he can't get the smirk off his face before she sees it and narrows her eyes angrily at him.

"It was lovely to meet you Aurora," Caroline says sweetly then she turns to him and lets him see through her armour of poison and smiles. "I guess I'll see ya?" she says and he can feel himself smiling adoringly back at her.

"I guess you will love" he says and then she's gone and he's left with nothing but the click of her heels, five foot nothing of furious lover and a delirious soaring feeling in his heart.

…..

She invites him to the wedding three years later. He takes Cami and they sit together near the back, their fingers entwined together and Hope in her pretty blue dress beside them looking on delightedly as Caroline glides down the aisle with her twin daughters carrying flowers before her. Their eyes meet once as she walks back down the aisle with her new husband and they share a brief understanding smile.

At the reception she finds him alone and nudges him with her shoulder. "So" she drawls. "When do I hear the 'I told you so's?"

He holds up his hands in mock innocence. "Not at all love," he replies enjoying the way her heart beat speeds up just a fraction at the endearment. "I'm merely here to compliment a truly stunning bride"

Just then one of her little girls comes over and tugs at her dress. "Mummy mummy, auntie Bonnie says its nearly cake time, come on"

She squats down. "Ok sweetie, go and find your dad," she tells the child. "I'll be there in a sec ok"

"Ok" the child skips off clearly bursting with excitement and Caroline watches her go with an indulgent loving expression.

"Motherhood suits you love," he says sincerely.

She nods and smiles still watching her daughter. "Yes, it does." Then she turns her eyes on his and her expression is serious and sincere. "Thank you. I'm not sure that I'd be here if not for what you said to me in New Orleans."

He shrugs dismissively but before he can wave off her thanks she takes his hand and they both startle at the lightning bolts of connection. She drops it as if burnt. "Darn," she grins ruefully. "I forgot about that. I think I'll avoid touching you for at next fifty years, just to be on the safe side. Married woman and all"

He laughs. "Fair enough sweetheart," he pauses and seems to consider her next words carefully. "Stefan not coming?"

"Urgh don't talk to me about Stefan Salvatore," she says in a tone that is dismissive in its disdain but not overly bitter.

"Ah" he thinks he understands. "Not the waiting kind then?"

She shrugs and looks down fiddling with her new ring. "I dunno, I never asked him too"

"No?"

She rolls her eyes, dancing round a subject has never been her thing. "No. That wouldn't have been fair, not when I knew…" she takes a deep breath and meets his eyes with a determined look. "I knew it wasn't end game, not with him"

He draws in a deep breath at the words she doesn't say out loud but he hears plainly enough, he's about to speak but, suddenly bashful, he smiles and drops his gaze. No woman in centuries has made him feel so unsure.

"It won't be anytime soon," Caroline says quickly. "I mean," she waves her left hand in his face. "I just got married"

He nods and catches a glimpse of gentle Camille laughing as she joins his daughter on the small dance floor. "It seems we are both tied to mortal loves then," he says watching the dance floor rather than looking at Caroline.

She follows his gaze and hers holds an unmistakable prickle of jealousy. "You got together with your shrink then? Isn't that wildly inappropriate or unprofessional or something?"

"Probably, but to be fair to Camille I am utterly irresistible" he says arrogantly just to see that signature Caroline Forbes eye roll again

"I'm glad," she says and at his skeptical look her voice goes a few tones higher. "I am" she insists. "If you're happy? If she makes you happy?"

"She makes me better," he says simply, because it is true. Camille is the first woman in centuries, perhaps ever, who saw the man and the monster in him believed the former could overcome the later. In the light of her belief in him, he can almost believe it too. He can strive for it knowing she is beside him with her uncompromising perception and her unwavering compassion.

"Well then I'm really glad," Caroline has mischief in her tone. "If she's fixing you for me, I should probably send a gift"

The 'for me ' isn't lost on him and he must look as dumbfoundedly delighted as he feels because now she does give him the eye roll but her lips curve into and affectionate smiles all the same.

Then her daughter is back dragging Alaric, smiling, behind her and he melts away, leaving her to her mortal loves. When they leave Caroline smiles a little too broadly at Camille while the teacher shakes his hand reluctantly and they all ignore the tension in the air.

"Thanks for coming" Caroline says stiffly her gaze skimming over his without daring to hold it.

He can't think of a reply so Cami steps in with a warm. "It was a lovely day, thanks for inviting us. Congratulations."

Their eyes do meet then and he smiles tightly and nods. "Congratulations Caroline" he says unable to keep his voice for dropping to that warm intimate tone he always reserved for her.

He knows that that tone always did things to her body, even when she hated him his voice could make her heart race and her blood roar, but when her eyes finally meet his he thinks maybe now it also does something to her heart because her eyes are speaking secret promises to him and her lips are parted in the smallest, sweetest, of smiles.

Then it's time to go, to live and love and raise his daughter, and wait, as he will always wait, for Caroline.


End file.
